


Dead to Rights

by Carmenlire



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Dimensions, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death In Dream, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, I had good omens in my head when I wrote this for some reason, M/M, POV Magnus Bane, Requited Love, so I feel like there is some dynamic of crowley/aziraphale??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 02:44:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21219281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: “I need to know, babe. If things were different-- if we weren’t in the shadow world, if it was a hundred years in the future, if either of us just cared a little bit less about our work-- do you think we would’ve made it?”He focuses on Alec and they smile at each other. Their eyes say everything they can’t but know in their hearts all the same.“Of course, Alexander,” Magnus finally replies, voice hoarse. “In another world, I have every faith that we live happily ever after.”





	Dead to Rights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/gifts).

> Happy Birthday Elle!! I know that it's not until tomorrow (Tuesday) but there's no way I can stay up until midnight to post! I hope you have a wonderful day and a splendid year and that you enjoy this little fic!! <3<3<3

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

No, Magnus thinks as he watches possibility turn to ash. He never thought that this was how their story would end.

In half a millennia, Magnus has both suffered and created terror the likes of which most will never know. He’s had a hand in razing cities, been lucky enough to rebuild a few others. Before Alec, he’d thought his heart carved from the most stubborn stone. Ennui became his constant companion and despite what he told the world, he’d been inching closer and closer to Camille’s mercenary philosophy on the life of an immortal.

It’s not until now, though, that he realizes with bone shattering certainty just how much the shadowhunter had changed things.

Magnus yells but over the roar of battle it makes little difference. From the corner of his eye, he sees the parabatai fall to the ground, his blonde hair matted with blood and his face pure, gut-wrenching pain.

Barely paying it any mind, Magnus rushes to Alec’s side.

He’s heedless with his magic and it scorches whoever-- whatever-- comes too close. The demons in his way are incinerated with negligent hands bathed in crimson. By the time he gets to the Head of the Institute, Magnus has managed to kill every last one of the enemy.

Bitter, all he can think is that he’d still been too late.

As he falls to his knees beside the eldest Lightwood, he can hardly remember all those perfectly valid, logical qualms that had kept them away from each other as first the bitterest of enemies, before their relationship had grown into the most steadfast of allies.

Never anything more, but it had been everything all the same.

Looking down, Magnus raises his hands and the shift to blue is gradual for all that it happens in a moment. Even as he starts pouring healing magic in to Alec, however, he knows it’s a waste.

Terror scalds his throat and it takes more effort than he’d ever admit to keep a reign on his emotions.

Still, his magic reacts to them all the same and the wave of blue is dense, impenetrable as Magnus tries to save Alec with everything he’s got.

“Magnus.”

His indrawn breath sounds like a gasp, like a sob around the edges, but Magnus doesn’t move his gaze from where he’s trying desperately to heal the appalling wound.

He gags when he sees Alexander’s torn, ravaged heart through broken ribs but his magic does not falter.

There’s a choking sound and then in his peripheral, Magnus becomes aware of a hand he’d know anywhere landing on one of his own. His magic doesn’t stop but it does dampen and he sags down onto his knees until he almost thinks he’ll fall right through the asphalt.

“Magnus.”

Magnus finally looks up and it’s only then that he realizes he’s crying when the body before him is blurry, soft at the edges as it only is when the loft’s morning light surrounds them.

He watches Alec’s lips move, though nothing comes out except the barest suggestion of air at first. It’s painful-- it feels like a vise is gripping his own throat as Magnus watches for his love’s last words-- and Magnus finds himself bending over, his spine a stark curve, until their lips are almost touching.

“Enough, Magnus.” Alec’s hand covers his.

While part of Magnus wants to blame the fact that Alec’s on death’s door for the way he doesn’t flinch as blue wraps around his hand, his wrist, most of him knows that even if Alec were perfectly sober and healthy, the blasted man would still have the same reaction.

Magnus grieves for that as much as for the rest of it.

“Oh, darling, look at you,” Magnus whispers and he closes his eyes as he feels Alec’s breath on his lips for the last time.

He shudders and Alec’s hand tightens around his and it’s all so goddamn unfair that Magnus wants to shout at the injustice of it all.

Behind his eyes, he relives dozens of memories and regret tastes like ash.

As though he can follow Magnus’s thoughts-- and Magnus wouldn’t even be surprised if it were true-- Alec murmurs, “Remember the first time we met?”

Magnus laughs and they both ignore its ragged edges. “How could I forget. You saved my life and then brought me into the Institute for questioning.”

Alec’s mouth quirks up into the faintest grin and when Magnus opens his eyes, he can almost believe it’s a normal evening and they’re bickering right before he portals them to dinner. He sees the threads of silver that have just barely started at Alec’s temples, the lines at his eyes that speak of the thousands of times Alec’s grinned at one of his puns, and his eyes.

Oh, his eyes, Magnus thinks. They still hold both heaven and hell in dueling shades of hazel.

“Yeah,” Alec says, bringing Magnus back. “And then you called me an opportunistic, self-aggrandizing bastard and opened a portal up right into my Institute’s command center.” He’s quiet for a moment and his voice is quiet when he next speaks, his words piercing Magnus to the core.

“I need to know, babe. If things were different-- if we weren’t in the shadow world, if it was a hundred years in the future, if either of us just cared a little bit less about our work-- do you think we would’ve made it?”

Magnus’s heart bleeds at the question and he looks down instinctively at those piercing eyes. His gaze lands on Alec’s wound and he swallows desperately against the bile that rises in his throat. Still, there’s not a doubt in his mind about the answer to Alec’s question.

Before he answers, though, he does something that he’s waited a lifetime for-- he’s thought on more than one occasion that he doesn’t remember a time when his every wish wasn’t centered just on this.

He closes that last crucial bit of distance between them and kisses Alec. His love tastes mostly like Magnus always figured he would-- he tastes like coming home. There’s a bitter thread of fear that runs through the kiss, though, and Magnus can’t forget for a second why he’s allowing them both this final goodbye.

So he pours everything he is and everything he’s held for Alec all these years into that goddamn kiss. He feels more than hears Alec’s moan and thinks that it’s only partly from pain. He doesn’t pull away, though, seems to instead sink into Magnus’s touch and so Magnus doesn’t pull away either. 

Not until his lungs threaten to give out and he loses his anchor.

Distantly, he thinks that he’s already lost his anchor-- Alec, who’s held him steadfast for damn near thirty years. Even when they didn’t speak, even when they couldn’t, Alec’s remained the sun from which his own life revolved.

The prospect of losing that would bring Magnus to his knees if he wasn’t already there.

When the kiss breaks, they both breath harshly in the post-battle silence. No one nears them and Magnus doesn’t even want to think about the aftermath of that kiss.

So he doesn’t.

He focuses on Alec, instead, and they smile at each other. Their eyes say everything they can’t but their hearts know all the same.

“Of course, Alexander,” Magnus finally replies, voice hoarse. “In another world, I have every faith that we live happily ever after.”

The phrase should be trite, laughably inappropriate for the High Warlock of Brooklyn and the Head of the New York Institute. They should be sworn enemies and yet.

And yet.

Magnus doesn’t take it back and finds he’s loathe to when everything in Alec seems to relax at the confirmation.

Magnus takes his free hand-- the one not still held in Alec’s stubborn grip-- and sweeps a thumb over his cheek, following the path of a heavy five o’clock shadow that's as familiar as his own goatee.

It’s just a few moments before Alec no longer has the strength to keep his eyes open but Magnus’s hand doesn’t stop it’s gentle caress and Alec sighs as he turns his head imperceptibly closer to his touch.

Magnus leans down one last time-- only the second time, he thinks with bitter resignation-- and lays another kiss on Alec’s mouth, so soft that he could almost believe it was all a dream.

“Sleep well, my darling.” Magnus bites his tongue but finds that he doesn’t want to keep these last words to himself, not after all this time. His voice cracks on a whisper as he adds, “I love you.”

He watches Alec’s face light up, muted in its joy, as he replies on a breath, his chest rattling with the effort. “I love you too, Magnus.”

Magnus squeezes his hand a bare second later but gets no response back. His back bows over his love-- his enemy, his friend, his constant companion since that mission all those years ago-- and his grief is a blinding wave that threatens to bring the world to its knees.

Magnus wakes with a gasp. Morning light streams through the curtains of their bedroom and he almost breaks his neck as he searches the other side of the bed. His panic is mostly subdued when smells coffee, even as he sees the empty bed.

He takes a second to get his breathing mostly under control. Briefly, he wonders if that was what a heart attack felt like-- like his chest was caving in, everything centered on what felt like a heart breaking in all the ways that mattered.

Resting a hand over his heart, he closes his eyes and focuses on what’s real. He feels the coolness of his wedding band on his chest and the warmth of the sun.

Magnus gets out of bed and doesn’t even bother reaching for his robe before he’s striding to the kitchen.

He stops on the threshold and feels everything slide into place at the sight that greets him.

Alec looks over at that moment and quirks a brow. “You okay, babe? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Straightening from where he’d been leaning against the door jamb, Magnus uses those last few steps to get everything under control. His smile is soft as he slides one hand around his husband’s waist, the other going to the half-full coffee cup in Alec’s grasp.

Alec just shoots him a deadpan look. “I made you your own cup, you know.”

Laughing a little and feeling lighter for it, Magnus leans into Alec and places a lingering kiss to the pulse at his throat. “But yours is so much better, darling.”

He feels Alec huff but neither one says anything else for a little while. Magnus is busy cataloging all the ways this is real and the furthest thing from that fucking nightmare.

His thoughts shift as Alec tilts his head up with a finger under his chin. “Seriously, are you okay? You looked spooked when you came in here.”

Magnus shrugs, looks down at the coffee mug between them. “I woke from a nightmare.”

“That bad,” Alec jokes and Magnus raises his head with a level look.

Whatever he sees makes Alec sober up and Magnus shivers a little before he sets the cup down and wraps both arms around Alec, squeezing just a little, just enough to know that dream is not reality.

He doesn’t really want to get into the particulars, however, so he settles for resting his head against Alec’s heart and feeling the steady beat calm him down to his bones.

It’s quiet in their loft for long moments, until he loses track of time. Finally, Magnus rouses when Alec kisses the top of his head.

Pulling back a little, Magnus catalogs Alec. He knows his husband as well as he knows himself but it’s still a little shocking to see the laugh lines at his eyes and the hair that’s definitely more gray than it was a few years ago.

Alec’s still the most attractive person Magnus has ever met but it strikes him sometimes that they’re not in high school anymore, that they’ve been together twenty eight years next month.

Before he knows it, Magnus asks, “Do you believe in alternate dimensions?”

Instead of laughing it off, Alec takes a moment to think about the question. Finally, he hums a little, replies, “I think I do. I think it would be foolish to assume we’re the only ones out there, the only versions of ourselves. That would be a little arrogant, don’t you think?”

“I think I dreamt of another us.”

“That bad, huh?” Alec’s voice is steady, serious, as he takes his cue from Magnus.

Magnus shudders as his husband sweeps a hand over his back in long, soothing motions.

“They loved each other,” Magnus murmurs, sighing a little as he closes his eyes and gives into the comfort Alec loves to give. “But it wasn’t enough.”

“Sometimes that’s all you can do, babe. Even if it doesn’t work out.”

Magnus smiles a little, tightens his arms that are slung low around Alec’s middle. “We’re damned lucky, Alexander.”

He hears Alec chuckle and it’s familiar even if it still makes him breathless after all this time. “Relationships take effort, Magnus, and we’ve both worked hard to make it work.” There’s a beat before Alec begrudgingly admits, “We might have had a little luck, though.”

The dregs of the nightmare still cling to Magnus and he mourns all the lives where he doesn’t live happily ever after with Alec. He knows without a doubt that he wouldn’t give this up, though, for anything-- the two of them spending a quiet weekend away from their law firm with just each other for company.

It’s everything he could ever want and luckily, it’s everything he could ever hope for. Knowing what Alec looks like bathed in the gold of morning, not being able to sleep without those adorable little snores in his ears, coming home to the love of his life every single goddamn day-- those are facts of his life far more precious than all the gold and silver and diamonds in the world.

“I love you,” Magnus murmurs against Alec’s chest.

There’s not even a breath of pause before Alec replies and he hears the smile in his voice as he says, “I love you too, Magnus.”

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on tumblr or twitter @carmenlire!


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